Oval Office Ambush

• Jay Soldner

  

  In Iraq, Alexis Janicki worked relaying communications from a satellite truck.

• Jay Soldner

  

Details:

Listen to Alexis Janicki explain why he jumped the White House fence and why he feels betrayed by the Army on this week’s Pitchcast:

Subject(s):

Iraq, President George W. Bush, PTSD

Iraq war veteran Alexis Janicki paces the wrought-iron fence surrounding the White House, plotting. Beyond it sprawls the manicured fairway of the north lawn, interrupted by a large, sputtering fountain. Beyond that is his target: President George W. Bush.

It's October 14, 2006, and in the gray chill of the late afternoon, the unreasonableness of forcing a meeting with the president seems reasonable to Janicki, a 24-year-old Independence, Missouri, resident. Janicki's mind betrayed him after his time in Iraq.

Janicki wants to talk to President Bush, to tell him, soldier to commander, that the Iraq war is an unwinnable clusterfuck.

He scans the herd of tourists. Their cameras seem to be aimed at him. Their conversations seem to be coded discussions about him. He is sure that he's under surveillance.

The fence stands about 10 feet tall. He scaled bigger walls in boot camp. Keep moving,he tells himself. Just keep moving.It would be a three-move summit.

He grips a fence post firmly and pulls himself up. With each step upward, his mind replays memories from Iraq like a film reel. It's 2003 again. He's surrounded by a mob of screaming men inside a clay hut in an Iraqi outpost village near the bombed-out palaces of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. His Army unit kicked in these men's doors the night before during a search for insurgents and have returned to offer food. Men surround him and shout. He has no idea if any of them are armed or strapped with explosives.

Janicki puts one hand over the other. He edges his foot onto a crossbar. Suddenly he's back in a chow hall. Outside the base, insurgents shoot mortars from passing cars and then speed away. The cafeteria pitches and shakes as blasts detonate all around it. His buddies slip flak jackets over their uniforms, put on bucket helmets and continue eating.

At the top of the fence, Janicki swings a leg over. When he lands on the White House grounds, his mind brings him back to jerking the steering wheel of his Humvee. He's trying to avoid an ambush. A satellite dish is strapped to the back of the truck. An insurgent in a Toyota Land Cruiser spots him and swerves directly in front of him. Janicki accelerates and dodges the kamikaze attack.

On the White House grass, Janicki runs at a full sprint. He feels euphoric, better than he has in months. Life finally has a purpose again.

Two days earlier, Janicki and his wife, Jamie, had arrived in Washington, D.C., to visit Janicki's mother. Janicki announced he didn't feel well, but they went on with their plan to visit a conference on green energy. The crowds on the subway made things worse. When they reached the expo, Janicki snapped. After Iraq, crowds often have that effect. He took off without a word, dashing roughly 10 blocks toward the White House.

Now, as Janicki approaches the fountain, three Secret Service agents blitz toward him. Their guns are drawn. One man holds the leash on a German shepherd. Tall and lithe, Janicki swings wide around the fountain, keeping it between him and the men.

Past the fountain, Janicki darts at full speed. He's just 10 yards from the White House doors when the agents intercept him and raise their weapons.

Janicki pulls up. He raises his hands. "Stop!" he screams. "All right, you got me." Janicki chuckles, then cheers, "Whoo-hooo!"

Two agents lunge. They grab his arms and wrestle him to the ground, then drag him away for interrogation.

That evening, Secret Service spokesman Kim Bruce announces that Alexis Janicki faces federal charges. His attempt to reach the president would've failed anyway; Bush was on vacation at Camp David.

For everyone else, this is where the story stops. The White House doesn't make public that Janicki was an Iraq war veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder. Janicki wears a red Old Navy sweatshirt and the Washington Nationals stocking cap he purchased from a street vendor a few hours ago. His left arm and abdomen are already bruising from the impact of the Secret Service's tackle. Government agents with color-coded lapel pins huddle around him.

They ask him to explain his actions. They demand to know how long he had planned to storm the White House.

Janicki says he's not sure. "I just felt froggy, and I jumped," he says, clearly impressed with his wall-climbing skills. "Who are you looking for? I'm not al Qaeda."

His cell phone rings. An agent grabs it and answers. It's Janicki's mother. A squad of agents is dispatched to search her home for drugs or terrorist paraphernalia. They come back empty-handed.

An agent spots Janicki's wristbandlike tattoo. It reads Pitbull, a reference to the unofficial Army mascot. "Because I'm tenacious like a pit bull," Janicki says absent-mindedly. This seems to annoy his captors even more.

The agents scour his service record. It shows that he joined the Army in 2000, when he was 18 years old. Growing up in Alexandria, Virginia, Janicki had rolled with a posse of slackers. They threw beer and weed-fueled bashes at an older friend's apartment. He quit school and earned a GED. They spray-painted graffiti in Georgetown; Janicki's tag was "Hero." One day, he walked into an Army recruiting station hoping he had found a place to belong. The desire to join an alpha crew overwhelmed him.